Never Smile at a Crocodile

This week my class returned from their Outdoor Education lesson with Miss Harvey full of excitement. They rushed into the classroom, all talking at once. As I listened I caught odd words. Sticky, crocodile, hoop, swamp, eaten! Just then Mrs Govier appeared at the the door. “Oh no, the pink crocodile!” the children screamed. At this point I was feeling very intrigued and slightly left out, as it was very obvious the children had had a great adventure and I hadn’t been part of it! I settled them down on the carpet and asked them what they had been up to in their Outdoor Education lesson this week. This is the story they told.

Sticky Feet

When we got to New, you know the big field near our woods, Miss Harvey told us our feet were sticky and we had to stick to another person. It was really hard because you had to stretch your legs out and we kept leaving big gaps. It took us along time to make a sticky circle and then Miss Harvey made it even harder! Now our both our feet and hands were covered in sticky goo. We really had to work as a team to make a big sticky circle.

Next we played our favourite game, hide and seek. Lots of us hid in the same place and we were found, but some of us found really good hiding places.
“Can you remember the game we played when we visited Knavesmire Woods?” they asked.
“Was it hide and seek with a twist?” I suggested, “Where you had to get back to base without the seeker seeing you.”
“Yes,” they said, “We played that next”.
“Was Mrs Govier the seeker?” I asked, “And she ….. pretended to be a pink crocodile?”
The children laughed. “Of course not, Miss Wilson, the crocodiles lived in the smelly swamp!”
“Crocodiles,” I exclaimed, “I thought there was only a pink crocodile?” And so the children explained about the smelly swamp.

We split into two teams and carefully walked to the smelly swamp.
“How did you know where the swamp was?” I asked.
“Two markers showed us where the swamp started and finished,” they replied.
The swamp was very wide, deep, wet and smelly. You could hear slurping sounds. And in each swamp there lived a very hungry crocodile who particularly liked eating children! We had to work as a team and get across the swamp using only the hoops Miss Harvey gave us.
“That sounds easy,” I said, somewhat disappointed.
The children continued. Mrs Govier, the pink crocodile and Miss Harvey, the red crocodile were waiting for their lunch, making scary faces at us and bashing their teeth together. We decided the best thing was to give everyone in our team a hoop and we started to give them out. But Miss Harvey had tricked us, there weren’t enough hoops for everyone!
I smiled, “So what did you do?”
We made a huddle and worked out what we were going to do and off we went. We tried to throw the hoops and then jump into them. We had to pass the hoops to our team mate. It was really scary because Miss Harvey and Mrs Govier ‘swam’ around the hoops licking their lips. Sometimes we threw the hoops too far and someone’s leg went into the swamp and got nibbled by the crocodile. Some people fell in and were eaten!

“Did any of you make it across the swamp?” I enquired.
“We did,” the children said, “But then we had to do it again and Miss Harvey made it even harder and took away another hoop!” The children continued to tell me with great excitement which bit of their body had been nibbled or eaten by the crocodiles.
“So what did you learn today?” I asked.
“To go slowly and think first,” they said, “And help your team mates, talk to each other and remember not everyone has the same sized legs.”

After such a great adventure, it was lunchtime, but everyone agreed that Miss Harvey and Mrs Govier wouldn’t be very hungry as they had spent all lesson nibbling children’s toes!